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The Vast of Night (Amazon Prime)
Highly stylised full length feature take on a 1950s 'Twilight Zone/Outer Limits' episode about a small town and a mysterious radio signal.
There's a few comedy moments, and excellent theming, but overall, and despite great performances from the two leads, from a story perspective it's not really anything you won't have seen before.

I suspect this is a bit more of an interesting question for a younger generation. For a lot of us here it's just "what's your favourite game?" or at least top 3.
As such, to the surprise of no one, Streets of Rage 2, then Metal Slug

I really quit enjoyed it, the lack of soundtrack was nice and enjoyed learning the trails once I got the controls sussed.
Had a bit of an addictive one more try kinda feel to it.
Apart from the later challenges which wasnt even going to attempt.

played this loads, but just a few mins here and there on loads of different games so not really got stuck into anything yet - so just initial impressions on a few games:
that one seemed pretty cool but i had a problem where moving the ball round an up -> right corner didn't work very well which kept getting me killed, not sure if it could be a problem with my pad? although the pad seems realy nice for everything else, hard to judge too well because of the fast movement in most of the games, but i can get annoyed playing shmups with anything other than a saturn pad, but this one seemed good to me.
blazing lazers i played the most not sure it's that great but it's sort of easy if you don't get hit and hard if you do because it puts you back to a checkpoint, the levels take ages and you lose powerups, there's a few games that are similar to this one on there, like supar star soldier and star parodier. i got pretty far on my first go, level 5 but then things went down hill.
rtype i'm not a big fan of but this does at least seem like a nice version.
had a go of an easy mode on one of the bonk games and it was pretty fun. a lot of then games have really nice bright pixel art.
soldier blade seemed alright but quite difficult.
sapphire i think is really rare/expensive so i wanted to give that a go, it was really hard, not sure if it was any good, mainly because the first ship seemed far too slow to dodge stuff, tried the 2nd ship which was much better.
played darius on the megadrive mini and darius gaiden recently, 1cc'd both, autofire does make them much easier mind, so thought i'd do ok on this one but it seemed much harder than those and i couldn't even get to the first stage boss!
lords of thunder seemed alright, pretty hard though.
played one where you are some kind of ninja and pickups get you clones of yourself following you around, and a bit like some of the shmups you seem super powerful but are screwed when you die.
going to play some more games tomorrow and then try and stick with one for a bit. overall i like the mini console so far, it's cool because i never had one before and only played a few of the games breifly before.

i liked that mountain bike game but not at first because i didn't get it, i thought it worked like trials but the checkpoints were too far apart, but it doesn't, you can keep retrying each checkpoint as much as you want to get faster because the overall timer is reset each time you go back to the previous checkpoint - went back to it with that info and enjoyed it, did all the easy challenges anyway. didn't think it was amazing mind.

Think I’ve put another 6 hours into this since my previous post, 16 total. I’m up to Chapter 6.
I still don’t really know what to make of it overall. I am enjoying it for sure but there’s just something there that doesn’t exactly make me jump at the chance to play it every day.
I really enjoyed the Bionis Leg portion of the game. I spent quite a large amount of that last 6 hours just doing this side quests, they are utter shite but as soon as you put that ! on the map I’ve just gotta do them. The rewards and XP you get from them seem worthwhile too.
I really enjoyed the first proper dungeon in the Ether Mine as well. I initially thought it would just be a boring cave system but it was so much more than that, I enjoyed navigating the areas via the vent fans too, thought this form of transport was a neat little touch.
The story has gotten much better too, with some big revelations at the end of the Ether Mine. I do really like the story setup, it’s like a little drip feed of mysteries with you finding out more every few chapters or so, enabling you to gradually get a clearer view of what’s going on as you make progress through the game. The villains don’t seem great to me so far, they seem very comic book and one-note but it’s early days still I know. There is definitely enough there to keep me engaged and intrigued though.
But yeah, there’s just something about the world and characters that still aren’t connecting with me. I do now like the combat and I enjoy the exploration side of the game but the other aspects are still lacking a bit for me.

It's Itch, there's going to be a lot of shite in there (one of the things is a pdf file of game industry publishers, professional bodies etc), but I saw a couple of games I've genuinely been interested in when I did a quick scan through the list.

Finished this on Friday, think it took me just over 4 hours to clock it in the end.
Surprisingly, I actually ended up loving this in the end. That opening Chapter turned out to be a needlessly long introduction to the game where not much happens, once I got to Chapter 2 things picked up immediately.
It really is the grotesque monsters that make up the game. Being introduced to this creepy creature with his long gangly arms in Chapter 2 and having this tense game of cat and mouse around these intricately designed levels was just great. The design of the monsters just can’t help but creep you out a bit, they’re never scary but do make your skin crawl a bit at how grotesque they really are.
This formula continues into the next chapter with the equally grostesque Chef Twins in the Kitchen but then things take a turn for weirder in the next chapter where you’re introduced to the many guests of this vile ship. This section still plays out similarly to the previous but this time many of the vile bastards chase you about rather than just one. The levels just have so much character and charm to them you can’t help but love their design, clambering around Kitchen utensils like a bizarre version of Ratatouille or dodging gluttonous monsters forging themselves in a Japanese inspired area, they’re just so distinct and memorable.
I just love how the game makes you feel really small up against these giants too. You really do feel like a Borrower or something scurrying up bookcases or shambling across shelves or table clothes. These sections are really tense too, the atmosphere, sound design and music all culminate to have you on the edge of your seat. There are some really cool chase sequences which set the pulse rate going at the end of almost every chapter too which are a nice touch.
So yeah, a really memorable, distinct and very enjoyable little game. Can’t recommend it enough.
Lots of pics:

Lonely Mountains: Downhill
Eurogamer and Sean at TCGS keep wanking over this and I just do not get it. At all! I just find it so so boring. Could only manage 2 of the mountains and had to delete it.
it’s on gamepass so give it a go if you like rubbish games.

I’ve just started the remaster of this on PS4. I’m very pleasantly surprised, didn’t think I’d like it as a FPS stealth game doesn’t really appeal on the face of it. I’ve just done the twins mission, and so far I’m really really enjoying it.
The blink mechanic is fantastic! It really brings a verticality to the levels usually missing. I like how it’s so far been set in a relatively small area which can be easily learned and figured out. Having fun exploring it, the size isn’t intimidating at all for a change.
Really impressed with the world building too, there’s a shitload to read but the majority of it is actually interesting and worth actually paying attention to. The graphical style holds up surprisingly wel too.

I don’t remember much of 13 myself, I certainly never finished the game.
She’s been asking about various tracks on FF7 (the original version). When I talked about the Chocobo’s, she went “can we play it?”.
Doubt it’ll come to much, as I only see her at the weekends, and she doesn’t have the greatest attention span. But I might try it with her.